Aba-Huab Camp water situation

A notice to you all that ABA-//HUAB CAMP & SAFARIS is experiencing a water shortage due to our underground waterhole/supply has dried up. In the mean time we need to dig up a second underground waterhole. At the moment we are transferring water from the nearby lodge which also undergoes water shortages at the moment. With this as from today onwards Aba-//Huab is forced to release your provisional and confirmed bookings until further notice and our water situation is sorted out. If you prefer to send your clients still for them just to be notified before. To avoid disappointments on arrival.
For those of you that have made in advance payments already we will make sure we accommodate your clients as before and that they have water available.

NB: ABA -//HUAB is not closed. We are still operating, clients are still coming in on a daily basis, just that we are giving them a discounted rate at the moment of which most clients don’t have a problem with.

For now that we preparing to dig up the new underground waterhole we cant promise that there will be water 24/7. This process might take a month or more to complete. Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this has and will cause, but it will be sorted out very soon.

Namibia: Susuwe Island Lodge reopens after extensive renovations - river cruise package

Terraces re-decked and trucks full of new furnishings were unloaded on shore and their contents carefully ferried across the Kwando River to their new home.
While guests enjoyed all the new design features and amenities at Susuwe Island Lodge, their stay was further enhanced by many spectacular sightings of elephants, buffalo, giraffe, zebra and sable. These same guests were also treated to the presence of six magnificent lions passing within 100 metres of their boat, while enjoying a sundowner on the Kwando River’s famed Horseshoe Bend.
Guests at Lianshulu Lodge have also been generously rewarded recently by sightings of a large herd of buffalo (over 500), elephant visits and appearances by a resident pride of lions.
The variety and abundance of game is amazing and sharing this with guests is an absolute pleasure for the Caprivi Collection team. Their expert knowledge ensures that guests are able to take advantage of this exciting and incredible experience.
To celebrate the refurbishment and re-opening of Susuwe Island Lodge, a wonderful sister property package has been created to showcase the Caprivi Collection and all it has to offer.
The Caprivi Celebration River Cruise Package combines a two-night stay at Susuwe Island Lodge and a two-night stay at Lianshulu Lodge (or vice-versa) with an extraordinary day spent travelling between the sister properties on the Kwando River.
This package is designed for guests to experience the unique style of hospitality available when hosted by a private concession, within a protected National Park, in the Eastern Caprivi region of Namibia, Southern Africa. Based on two guests sharing a room on a double/twin occupancy basis, with full board, for a four-night stay.

Bush fires around Windhoek area, Namibia

Due to dry weather conditions bush fires in Namibia are common this time of the year:

New Namibian game hunters group claims exclusion

A new trophy hunters group claims that the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) is disadvantaging them by favouring an old association - the Namibia Professional Hunters Association (NAPHA).
Although NAPHA has more than 500 members, only a handful are allegedly previously disadvantaged persons.

The members, who have formed the Newly Established Trophy Hunting Operators (NETHO), say although they are previously disadvantaged, the NTB has refused to recognise them. They further say that the NTB allowed Napha to decide whether Netho was eligible for the market during a meeting held on 6 June this year. Last year, the new group said NTB invited them for a trip to Finland as part of an empowerment scheme, but since then there has not been any communication. Even complaints lodged with the tourism body, they say, have been ignored.

As recent as last week, Netho says, NTB took Napha on a hunting fair trip to the United Arab Emirates to market their businesses, despite the fact that they are already well established.

“NTB said they were in discussion with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to enable us to obtain more game species from the ministry through the Wildlife Breeding Stock Loan Scheme,” said Mensah.

Mensah also said NTB decided that Napha should visit Netho farms before August this year to advise NTB on their shortcomings.

He said Netho members were angered that NTB was allowing Napha, which is subjected to the same statutory requirements, to carry out an audit after another done by NTB last year.

Mensah further said that Napha's audit reports would be checked against a list of requirements to determine whether the new game farmers would qualify for assistance from AgriBank and NTB. NTB chief executive officer Digu //Naobeb said since his organisation was not an expert in trophy hunting, they sought Napha's advice to assist the game farmers to mainstream their operations.

“The possibility of receiving game through the scheme is decided by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, and not by NTB. Agribank, not NTB, grants loans to farmers,” //Naobeb said. “Funding is a personal commitment, therefore, NTB could neither commit nor provide security on such loans. It is regrettable [that] promises were made to Netho for issues that NTB has no control over, and we hope that we have cleared this for the record,” he said.

//Naobeb, however, said NTB will continue supporting the new game farmers by providing advice on how to improve their facilities to meet the regulatory standards.

He said although NTB is committed to supporting Netho, there is no official policy on how to balance the various industries, including tourism and bringing on board those who were previously left out from the mainstream activities.

//Naobeb, however, revealed that NTB was planning to take Netho members to hunting fairs in the USA. “But there must be an understanding that one cannot attend hunting fairs without understanding the industry. We need to engage Napha to assist in this regard so that Netho is better prepared to derive full benefits,” he said.

He added that Netho should not view Napha as an obstacle, but rather as a partner and that the visits to their farms is only voluntary and with Netho's permission. Napha members who went on the trip to the UAE, he explained, each paid US$4 500 to exhibit at the NTB stand.

Dietlinde Mueller, Napha chief executive officer, denied that her association was trying to make it impossible for Netho to penetrate the market. “We have no authority to dictate what is to happen with newly-established trophy hunting operations. We would like to help them in any way we can. If our help is not needed, then we will definitely not push anyone to accept our offer,” she said, adding that her association and NTB have a longstanding commitment.

“Napha pays for its share. Nothing is given for free. Napha, being a membership organisation, obviously spreads the news amongst Napha members. However, the ministry was also asked to participate. If Napha had been approached by Netho we would have included them immediately,” she said.

Attempts to get hold of environment minister Uahekua Herunga proved futile while the ministry's permanent secretary Simeon Negumbo said he was unaware of Netho's queries.

Namibia: new bakery opens in Aus

Residents of small town of Aus in the !Nami#nus Constituency (Southern Namibia) will no longer have to travel more than 120 km to coastal Lüderitz to buy bread, as  a local woman, Maria Vlees, opened Goretti's Bakery in Aus. At the beginning of 2014 Vlees received equipment from the Ministry of Trade and Industry to make her business more productive. Maria explains that the bread tray she received can bake about 20 loafs at a time.

EU's millions for Namibia’s rangeland

Namibia could soon receive a grant of N$11.6 million from the European Union to kick-start the implementation of the country’s first National Rangeland Management Policy and Strategy (NRMPS) that could change the face of rangeland management in arid Namibia forever.

The multi-million dollar project was approved by government in 2012 and the multi-faceted programme will be implemented over a period of four years. It will consist of a Rangeland Advisory Committee and a Rangeland Coordinating Unit, with the Namibian Rangeland and Bush Encroachment Forum as the overarching body.

This was revealed last week at the opening of the 18th Namibian Rangeland Forum, held at West Nest Lodge near Witvlei, when chairperson of the Livestock Producers Organisation, Mecki  Schneider, addressed an audience from as far as Australia.

The theme of the conference year was “Towards whole farm management aimed at sustainably high profit”.

During the conference feedback was given about six projects which are currently in the process of being financed by the European Union. These include, inter alia, the establishment of a coordinating unit under the grant which has been made by the EU to the NAU (Namibia Agricultural Union) for the implementation of the National Rangeland Policy and Strategy.

Most of the projects relate to rangeland, the improvement of rangeland, the effect of climate change and combating de-forestation.

The program officer of the EU delegation, Laura Imbuwa, expressed excitement about the overall goal of the project,  confirming the possible speedy signing of the agreement for such a grant to the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry.

She says this EU-funded action will enhance/support the speedy implementation of the NRMPS amongst all natural rangeland users in Namibia, improve rangeland condition and resilience and reduce the vulnerability of rural resource users to the adverse impacts of climate change, drought and desertification.

Schneider says the specific objective of the action is to effectively and efficiently coordinate the implementation of the NRMPS at national and regional levels.

He stressed the importance of government carrying on with the project after the initial four years to enable Namibian farmers to practise good rangeland management as the country has a relatively low and highly variable rainfall, together with a decline in rangeland productivity per hectare, bush encroachment and soil erosion. “These challenges are further increased by climate change,” he noted.

At the same event, Colin Nott of the Co-operative Agriculture Namibia announced another EU-funded project, the Rangeland and Marketing Development Support Project of more than N$11 million.

The lead applicant of this project is the Meatco Foundation and the co-applicant is Co-operative Agriculture Namibia. The six regional areas are Kunene North, Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena, Oshikoto and Kavango East and West and the project duration will be thirty months.

The project hopes to improve the active involvement of key regional players in all seven regions to climate adaption activities through implementation of regionally appropriate responses, improved uptake and application of best practice rangeland management policies, improved herd production, improved marketing options and more receptive sellers in at least 30 grazing areas.

Other issues to be addressed include increased awareness of cropping best practices, the development of synergies with croplands and livestock, as well as local level land use planning, grass poaching, fire control and other key issues that affect livestock and rangelands.

Both initiatives hope to train and expose key stakeholders through regional meetings to agree on locally appropriate key messages and material for rangeland, livestock, marketing, cropping and local land use planning.

Future Energy Supply Action is Needed

The government together with stakeholders in the energy sector should draft a law on renewable energy and energy efficiency as a matter of urgency. Net metering for domestic solar photovoltaic installations must also be made available across all electricity distribution and supply entities in the country, except if these do already offer a reasonable feed-in tariff for such systems, and appropriate legislation and regulations should be finalised expeditiously. Renewable energy feed-in tariffs (Refit) must as well be finalised and operationalised as a priority.

These were some of the suggestions made during the two-day conference on renewable energy that ended in Windhoek, organised by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economics, Natural Resources and Public Administration. Concluding the deliberations the conference recommended that financial mechanisms should be introduced to allow all domestic residences to be fitted with a solar water heater, and that the viability and requirements of initiating local solar water heater assembly or manufacturing plants be assessed and included under the Ministry of Trade and Industry's promotion of local value addition priorities.

Delegates agreed that national energy efficiency standards should be developed and that government take the lead in implementing them in all government institutions and public buildings.

The conference recommended that explicit national renewable energy targets as well as energy efficiency targets be put forward, focusing on the country's transport sector, which is the single largest user of liquid fuels, and technologies requiring electricity for their operation.

The conference recommended that relevant criteria for the definition and measurement of the productive use of energy in general, and electricity in particular, be laid down, and that relevant activities and measures be formulated to reduce Namibia's energy intensity and promote the uptake and focus on the productive use of sustainable energy and energy efficient technologies for the sustainable development of the country; and that education for sustainable development be included in school curricula to emphasise the importance of sustainable energy for future generations.

The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economics, Natural Resources and Public Administration, Ben Amathila, said unless deliberate decisions are taken, Namibia's economy would be negatively affected by electricity shortages which will have major negative effects on investment, especially in the mining sector.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Amathila said: "As a country, we are currently faced by a huge challenge in our national electricity sector, ranging from increasing energy prices, the inability of the current installed generation capacity to meet the rising demand for electricity in the country and to top it all, our neighbouring countries on whom we rely for electricity supply will most likely not be able to supply us at all times."

According to him, Namibia is said to be facing about an 100MW electricity deficit by 2015. The deficit will further rise to 300MW should there be no any investment in any energy generation infrastructure.

Amathila said Namibia depends mainly on the Ruacana hydro power plant for most of the country's energy and the rest is imported from South Africa (Eskom), Zambia (Zesco) and Zimbabwe (Zesa), which is also faced with a crisis of meeting energy demand.

He added that Namibia spent about N$1 billion on importing electricity from South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Over 250 people including international and local experts on renewable energy sources attended the conference.

Gondwana’s new hotel in Swakopmund, Namibia

Swakopmund is to have another new hotel that challenges the traditional hotel establishment, to compete in one of the picturesque tourism attraction town on the misty coast of Namibia. The hotel, being developed by the Gondwana Group, will have 54 rooms, but its offering would be slightly different from the other hotels in the area. For starter, the hotel will not offer dinner service to guests, – there is a host of other items that would not be on offer – because the hotel aims at complementing its offerings with what is already being offered by other small hospitality establishments around the town. Gondwana Group has based its business model for the hotel on a supplementary approach to small and medium hospitality outlets in the area.

“There are so many good restaurants within walking distance that we decided against offering dinner,” said Alain Noirfalise, Operations Director of the Gondwana Group, on the hotel’s supplemental approach and the reason why the hotel would offer breakfast only.

Development Bank of Namibia (DBN) has hailed the innovative approach of Gondwana Group and decided to fund the hotel development. “In the long run, the hotel will require goods and services needed to provide accommodation, so that also improves opportunities for enterprises. It will bring the benefits directly associated with tourism, which includes opportunities for tour and activity operators in Namibia, hospitality and retail outlets at the coast. The additional beds in Swakopmund will give greater certainty to tour operators who need accommodation in Swakopmund to ensure their own operations in other parts of the country as well,” said DBN Head of Lending, John Mbango.

DBN also says tourism is one of the areas it expects to make an impact, as noted in its 5-year strategic plan till 2018, hence the hotel in Swakopmund exemplifies the type of project that the bank seeks to finance. “There is severe pressure on accommodation in Swakopmund during the international tourism high season in the second two quarters of the year, and the sustainability of an accommodation establishment of this nature is also supported by high regional demand for beds during December and over Easter,” Mbango said.

According to the Economic Outlook Report for July 2014, published by the Bank of Namibia, the outlook for tourism in the 2014 tourism season is currently weak due to uncertainty in Namibia’s main tourism markets, but is expected to improve during 2015. This dovetails with the projected completion of the new hotel.

“DBN particularly wants to see more proposals from conservancies. We are aware that a number of public private partnerships (PPPs) have been extremely successful, not only in developing and running lodges, but also in making major development gains for the communities involved in the lodges. This extends to gains in employment, community infrastructure and sustainability of the environment”, added Mbango.

The hotel is expected to create 32 permanent jobs. Immediately during the construction phase, it is expected to create employment opportunities in the construction industry, as well as income generating opportunities for enterprises that supports the contractor, and additional associated employment benefits.

Namibia will remove cash deposit fees

The Minister of Finance Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila says cash deposit fees will be completely removed without any limitation from all individual saving and investment accounts by March next year in order to make financial services and products affordable.
The minister said this at the inauguration of Nedbank branch in Ongwediva last Friday 8 August 2014. She pointed out that the move was taken to address the reality of barriers hindering the people from accessing formal banking services in Namibia. These are excessive fees charged by banking institutions against consumers when depositing money into their accounts. Already, the minister noted, steps were taken to relieve the consumers from the burden of excessive fees when the Bank of Namibia issued standards for individuals earning N$2 000 per month or less, that no cash deposit fees and no monthly fees or management fees be charged on their accounts. This resulted in about 96 072 active basic bank accounts (BBA) being recorded.
“In the same vein, BoN in addition of the BBA, issued standards in cash deposit fees. In terms of these standards, all banking institutions were to provide free cash deposit for the first N$2 000 deposit per month on all savings and investment accounts held by individuals at banking institutions as from 31 July 2013,” she said.
Similarly, the minister added, all banking institutions were to provide all businesses with annual turnover of N$1million or less with zero-rated cash deposits for the first N$10 000 deposited per month, as from 31 October 2013. All the initiatives have been implemented as agreed. According to the minister, other policies in the pipeline aimed at enhancing access to finance by SMEs include the investigation study to explore the viability of setting up a risk-facility fund for start-ups.
Chairman of the Northern Branch of the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Thomas Indji welcomed the move but expressed concern that the banks may find other ways of increasing service fees.
He said some of the NCCI members who were found with huge cash amounts have used alleged exorbitant cash deposit fees as the reason why they are not using banking institutions.
The occasion was also attended by the governor of Oshana Region, Clemens Kashuupulwa, representatives from the Bank of Namibia, commercial banks, business people other financial institutions, church and community leaders.

Wolwedans student trainee graduation

Wolwedans is pleased to celebrate the graduation of 20 students from its vocational training programme. After three years of diligent work, perseverance and professional pressure, 12 former trainees can now call themselves certified chefs and 8 former students are now accredited individuals in Food and Beverage Services. This achievement is a great accomplishment for the Hospitality industry.

Through the Wolwedans Foundation, the students were able receive instruction under the stewardship of the Wolwedans-based Desert Academy, as well as the Windhoek-based nice Restaurant and Bar. This unique combination of exposure ensures that trainees acquire various composite skills for the future. Upon graduation, the students are well versed in the both practical and theoretical aspects of their chosen profession.

The newly qualified graduates are a representation of Wolwedans commitment to uplifting local communities. In addition to the time and effort invested into  equipping the trainees for their futures, Wolwedans continually contributes financially towards the programme. On a monthly basis, for several years, Wolwedans Dune Camp and other sites within the Collection contribute a portion of all proceeds to the Wolwedans Foundation.